$1.5 million grant from Tiffany Foundation to fund landscaping for new Greenway carousel

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The Rose Fitzgerald ­Kennedy Greenway Conservancy has received a $1.5 million grant from the Tiffany & Co. Foundation to pay for lush landscaping around a planned Boston-themed carousel.

The conservancy, a private nonprofit that manages the 1.5-mile Greenway, said Thursday that it plans to begin work next week on the carousel project, to be located on parkland between Faneuil Hall Marketplace and Christopher Columbus Park.

The carousel is part of an ­effort to attract more families and inject more life into the Greenway.

Instead of the usual horses, riders will sit atop replicas of such iconic local fauna as lobsters, butterflies, foxes, sea ­lions, and falcons. The twirling menagerie will be surrounded by freshly planted shrubs, flowers, and 25 trees.

The new carousel is set to open on Labor Day.

“We are as excited about [the landscaping] as we are the carousel itself,” Linda Jonash, the conservancy’s director of planning and design, said by phone. “It will be really a destination: ‘Let’s go to where the big grove of trees are.’ ”

The nearly 20,000-square-foot area, which will be named the Tiffany & Co. Foundation Grove at Carousel Park, will have a mix of red maples, oaks, magnolia trees, honey locusts, and sweet gum trees, as well as planted beds on the eastern, western, and northern perimeters, and seating.

While a more traditional carousel currently leases space from the Greenway and shares profits with the conservancy, the $3 million project will transform the parcel between the Harbor Island Pavilion and the Armenian Heritage Park and offer a one-of-a-kind ride.

Rides will cost $3, and revenues will fund the Greenway’s free public programs and other offerings.